Tuesday, June 5, 2018

Pawn of White Christian Nationalists, Jack Phillips, who convinced a dumb Supreme Court that his wedding cakes are "religious expressions" and baking one for a gay couple would violate his "religious beliefs and freedoms".

Well, we've now seen the legal rathole that the Hobby Lobby case has opened up with the Supreme Court actually voting in the 7-to-2 decision in favor of delusional Christian cake maker Jack Phillips. This was in respect to his case brought against the Colorado Civil Rights Commission . The Commission had declared Phillips’ religious beliefs about marriage to be discriminatory when he refused to bake a wedding cake for a gay couple.

At the time the case first drew media prominence in December, supporters of Phillips argued that if he lost his legal fight then like-minded "entrepreneurs", i.e. with a religious objection to LGBT or same-sex marriage, effectively would be "barred" from doing wedding work. (In fact, it would be their choice not to do such work, i.e. opt out.) The claim was that a loss would also “provide a road map for litigation against Christian photographers who are bound by religious conviction not to offer their artistic talents to photograph a same-sex wedding ceremony or celebration,” according to the International Christian Photographers in a brief filed to the high court.Evidently, the Supremes bought this malarkey hook, line and sinker, thus conveying further proof the whole country is undergoing a mental meltdown - and no longer able to process rational thought. Writing for the majority, Justice Anthony Kennedy said the Colorado Civil Rights Commission showed: “hostility to Phillips’ religious beliefs in ordering him to undergo anti-discrimination training."This is absolute poppycock and twaddle. In fact, the CCRC showed mercy in not dispatching him to a psych hutch to undergo electro-convulsive therapy - which is what he really needed. As I noted in an earlier December post on the case, the SC judgment should have been essentially a no brainer. I even cited the words of one of the lawyers for the Denver Metro Chamber of Commerce:

"It is not hard to imagine the claims that will follow this case: A jeweler may argue that his religion forbids him from selling wedding rings to aninterfaith couple; ashop owner may refuse service to women customers to avoid contact prohibited by his religion,”

What would there be to stop it? Well, nothing, if each little special "private business" decided to whom it will sell and who will be rejected as miscreants. Here's the bottom line truth: The restaurateur, cake maker, photographer is afforded certain privileges (via a licensing) to trade or provide services (such as food) in the public domain. However, their so called "freedom" (e.g. to trade) is limited. Hence, that can't include refusal of service unless there are extenuating circumstances, i.e. customers entering drunk and disorderly. THIS is the rational way to interpret the wedding cake case, but which the 7 justices flouted, evidently terrified they will be the targets of the white Christian nationalists backing Phillips - which I will get to shortly. But did Justice Kennedy do justice to the case? Nooooo....He launched out further in his reckless screed:“The laws and the constitution can, and in some instances must, protect gay persons and gay couples in the exercise of their civil rights, but religious and philosophical objections to gay marriage are protected views and in some instances protected forms of expression.”

Yes, Justice Kennedy, the objections to LGBT, gay marriage etc.are protected views, which Phillips et al are entitled to exercise in their own home or group. But they absolutely have NO latitude to do so in the business sphere! Not because the excluded ones are gay and gay people "deserve a break". But because the operation of the law in the commercial trade sphere cannot be a free for all where everyone does what he wants. That is, selling services to some because they conform to notions of deserving one's "religious self expression", but rejecting others out of a sense of violating one's religious faith or personal dignity. That is a prescription for economic anarchy.

Thus, Justice Kennedy's words amount to a load of recycled codswallop which mixes apples and oranges within a civil, legal framework. But even Kennedy's mumbo- jumbo doesn't come close to the drivel spouted by Clarence Thomas, e.g.:"Custom baking the wedding cake would have made Mr. Phillips an active participant in the weddingcelebration."Uh, no you deplorable dumbass. Phillips would have had to actually have gone to the event to be an "active participant." But this is the sort of inflated rhetoric that discloses how far down the rabbit hole of irrationality we've traveled. At issue then, is whether the cake maker - and the assorted Xtian photographers for that matter- have entered into a business or not. If not, if they simply follow their art or self-expression - with NO public sales or commerce- then they are not obliged to do anyone's bidding. They are not in the commercial marketplace but operating in their own private (e.g. family, neighbor-to-neighbor) domain.If, however, they are businesses and operating in the public, commercial sphere, no such rights apply. They have to play by the same rules as all other commercial franchises, sellers. That's why this ought to have been a no brainer for the Supreme Court.

Meanwhile, deep politics researchers have logically connected the wedding cake case to multiple others being brought, all part of an organized bid to impose hardline Christian values across American society. In other words reduce us to a Theocratic Nazi type fascist state but with crosses replacing swastikas. At the point of the spear is "Project Blitz". Frederick Clarkson, senior research analyst at Political Research Associates, a thinktank which studies the political right, was first to write about Project Blitz, which he said had been hiding in plain sight. According to Clarkson:

“It’s very rare that you come across a major primary source document that changes the way you view everything, and this is one of those times. This is a 116-page strategy manual hidden away on a website explaining at least what a section of the religious right are doing in the United States. To me that’s astounding.”

The Blitz playbook came to wider attention in April after Clarkson was tipped off to its existence. He also highlighted recordings of conference calls where leading figures in the CPCF set out their plans to flood state legislatures with their specious religious bills..

Clarkson, whose research first highlighted Project Blitz, said:

“It’s a Christian supremacist agenda, the idea that God intended and mandates Christians to lead and control the United States for the religious vision that they hold and the policy implications that flow from it.If you are a more liberal Christian, a Jew, or a Muslim, or a non-believer of any sort, or whatever you happen to be, you’re a second class citizen at best.”

Andrew Whitehead, assistant professor of sociology at Clemson University, recently published a study titled Make America Christian Again which described the so-called quest for “dominion” as the aim of Christian white nationalists who consider that the Christian faith and their particular interpretation should be imposed nation wide.

Who exactly are these imps taken in by this crap? Well, the usual suspects. Whitehead also concluded that the more someone believed the United States was and should remain a Christian nation, the more likely they were to vote Trump in 2016- and probably in 2020 if the swine is still hanging around - and hasn't yet been hung as a traitor.

The one saving grace in the wedding cake case? The ruling left open the question of whether anti-discrimination laws should supersede religious beliefs in future cases. In other words, just because the religious Right fascists won in this case doesn't necesarily mean they will win in a future one. But that assumes the court will not be contaminated by the Project Blitz fanatics, their sordid agenda for domination and their grievances. Especially one justice in particular: Neil Gorsuch, e.g.

About Me

Specialized in space physics and solar physics, developed first astronomy curriculum for Caribbean secondary schools, has written thirteen books - the most recent:Fundamentals of Solar Physics. Also: Modern Physics: Notes, Problems and Solutions;:'Beyond Atheism, Beyond God', Astronomy & Astrophysics: Notes, Problems and Solutions', 'Physics Notes for Advanced Level&#39, Mathematical Excursions in Brane Space, Selected Analyses in Solar Flare Plasma Dynamics; and 'A History of Caribbean Secondary School Astronomy'. It details the background to my development and implementation of the first ever astronomy curriculum for secondary schools in the Caribbean.